Floating screeds are used to strike off and finish concrete floors or other horizontal surfaces. In general, a floating screed has a heavy planar float with an elongated edge defining a blade. The blade forms the leading edge of the screed that cuts through a volume of plastic concrete as the screed is pulled therethrough. Excess concrete that builds up on the blade side of the screed is raked away by workers standing in the unfinished concrete. As the float moves over an area of the concrete cut by the blade, the float serves to smooth the concrete thereby leaving a finished region of concrete that should be smooth, level, and at a specified elevation.
Typically, the unfinished concrete is adjacent to a section of finished concrete that has not yet cured. The floor finishers generally place a portion of the floating screed on the finished concrete thereby referencing one end of the screed to the finished elevation/grade plane. To make elevation corrections in the unfinished concrete, the floating screed is essentially lifted up/pushed down on the portion thereof that is in the unfinished concrete. While the goal is to place the screed at the same elevation as the finished concrete, this action tends to tilt the floating screed with respect to the desired finished elevation. Further, since the finished concrete is generally not yet fully cured, this tilting action also can cause the floating screed to dig into the finished concrete and/or damage the edge of the finished concrete where it interfaces with the unfinished concrete thereby necessitating repair work.